


Of Wives and Monsters

by holographiccatpun



Category: Young Goodman Brown - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Genre: Child Death, Faith deserves better, Gen, Goodman Brown is not a good man, Period Typical Everything, Period typical child death, domestic abuse, its off screen tho, satan?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 07:19:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18806383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holographiccatpun/pseuds/holographiccatpun
Summary: An alt epilogue I wrote for my lang class. Not a lot more than that.





	Of Wives and Monsters

_A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man, did he become, from the night of that fearful dream._

  


Something on that eve had upset her poor husband, a souring of the blood that had held him for this many years, an unrelenting pox on their household and occasionally the commonwealth. He returned the following morn with a twist in his gait and a thorn in his side. Her husband had died in those woods, she believed, and a monster had taken his place.

 

But that monster was hers, and she had been his. In quiet moments, the seconds between breath in the deadest of nights, she looked upon his moonlit face and searched for him. The barest glimpse of silver glow would trace the features of the man beside her and she would will herself to see him. Any of him. Any speck of the man she had loved so emphatically, who loved her back just the same. On some nights, when the moon was right and the vibrant sunset had faded into a cool black shroud above them, he was there. No quirk in his lip, her name not on his tongue, but a blank look of tranquil slumber. And so she stayed, reverent by the prone figure of her husband, the husk of the Young Goodman Brown she had lost so long ago.

 

Years wore on, as they so often do, and she persevered. She played wife to the creature, mother to _her_ children, not its. She did not weep, her children did not ever see their mother cry, not even when her Enoch, born nay five months after the night looking so wholly like _him_ , had fallen to consumption at the age of three. He was interred behind the house, with only a black cherry tree as a head stone.

 

Under this tree she would sit, every day, after the sun had risen and it had left her, but before the other children would awaken, she would sit and pray. On the days that followed good nights, when she had a glimmer of hope in her heart, she would harvest the fruit in her basket and set to baking for the day. She would gather her daughters in the kitchen and teach them their wifely duties, show them how to make the pies and cakes her mother had taught her at their age. Those days were her favorites. The nights that followed, when it returned with that same look etched upon its face, and grumbled about the useless frills of sweetmeats and plain women, they were less so.

 

One such day, as the frost had left them early and the March sun left warm swaths against the foliage, it spoke to her. Not before the children, or in the manor of that either, but as she readied for bed.

 

“Faith.” It said. The voice was enough to stop her nimble fingers from continuing on their path to unbutton her dress. Deep and heavy, full of a discontempt that raised the hackles she had come to associate with its visage.

 

“Theophilus,” She nodded, still frozen in quiet fear.

 

“Would you care to explain the state of Abigale and Prudence today?” It growled, taking one heavy booted step towards her.

 

“I-”

 

“Tell me, woman, why my daughters were dressed like _that_ in the midst of winter?” Before she could hazard an answer, it took another step, now snarling directly into her ear. “Do you want them to be like you?”

 

She took a deep breath, her fingers trembling as she refused to turn and face it. “What do you mean?”

 

“You know what I mean, _Faith_ ,”  the beast spat her name as if it were poison.

 

“It was too warm for the winter dresses, they said they were too hot.” Her voice wavered a little, but she continued, “I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.”

 

“Clearly. You would think it good to have my daughters inducted into this little concordat that has infected Salem?” its sharp hands clutched her arms and spun her, forcing her to look into its dark, cruel eyes. She tried to look away, to cast her eyes downward from its painful face, but it shook her, maddeningly crying out again, “Answer me!”

 

“I do not know!” She pleaded, the weakness filling her. She feared for the children. What would come of them if she were not there? If it could not sustain its rage upon her? Were she to die, what would come of them?

 

“Do not try to fool me! I saw you in the woods that night!” it bellowed, flinging her into the wall. It continued to stare, awaying her rebuttal, her denial of what he knew.

 

His breath was ragged, washing her face in the hot smell of pies and the not uncommon rage. In their rooms, the children shuffled softly in their beds, some, well on their way to sleep, snored gently into their pillows. Through the window, an owl hooted as a few small animals churred to life, a signal of the beginning of their nocturnal day. Across from them, their harth crackled as logs and ash continued their unending grumble of heat. Faith remained silent.

 

“I saw you.” it muttered softly, the edge in its voice not hidden. “I saw you, my Faith, with the Deacon, and old Goody Cloyse, out in the woods that night.” the bruising grip lessened as one hand came to trace her cheek. “I watched as you made your pact with Mephistopheles himself.”

 

She looked up and took a shaky breath, stealing herself to say, “ _What?!_ ” She pulled the hands off of her and squirmed out of his grasp. “Is that why you’re like this? Because you believe some cocamamie tale you spun in the woods half a score ago?!” She threw up her hands, gesturing to herself, “Have I _ever_ been anything less than what I say I am? Do I put on airs about being better than little old Faithie Brown? No! And the Deacon and Old Missus Cloyse? They were kind, honest people! Unlike what you have become, Goodman Brown, without a scrap or scrupule of dignity or sense about you!”

 

The blow that followed felled her, leaving her trembling on the floorboards. “Do not tell me what I have and have not seen, Faith.” It hissed lowly. She gave a small nod from beneath it and it smiled, entity at bay again, and began to prepare for bed. After a moment, she returned to bed as well.

 

Faith Brown would live a long life, filled with children and grandchildren and even a great grandchild. She was a good, honest woman with a head on her shoulders and the Lord in her heart. When her children were all grown, married off and away into New York and Boston, she took up the cloth, teaching hymns to the children every Sunday. Salem had lost a great soul that day, the entire town came down to the Brown home for the wake. Her daughters wept and no one mentioned the tears on her sons’ faces, as well. The eldest, a wisp of a man who had remained in Salem, said that she left with a smile, “I’m going to see him again.” she had laughed softly, her hands clasping his, uttering “Theo-,” with her last breath. Old Goodman Brown refused to acknowledge this, nothing but the ramblings of a dead woman.

  



End file.
